General Chat

back for a while x

isn't it brill - it is written by my cousin (I am so so so proud of her) and is about my wife's grandmother and her sisters. My wife did some of the research for it. I'm taping it tonight so don't tell me what happens lol

Thoroughly enjoying it! Chris

Errol, your cousin and your wife are absolute GENIUS'!! Brilliant programme. Tina x

I am exceedingly proud of them!!!!!

I find it quite spooky actually cos I keep hearing family phrases and seeing family events!

Errol, are you serious? It is such a brilliant story and even o.h. is enjoying it. What clever family you have to write this - fancy seeing your own family history on tv. Can you tell us which one is your wife's grandmother? Liz

OMG....i missed it................E sorry!! Anyone taped it???????????????

PP I have pmd you. Hope you are well.

This is such a good programme,well done Errol must feel great to be part of it. Most costume dramas are adaptations these days, but this eight-part series is completely original.” Created and largely written by Heidi Thomas (best known for I Capture the Castle and a particularly sexy adaptation of Madame Bovary), the storylines can get extremely dark, but they are free of Catherine Cookson melodrama and far too quirky and unexpected to be dismissed as period soap opera. The key to the show, which has taken ten years to reach the screen, is pinned up on the notice-board in the production office. It is a faded black-and-white wedding photo, featuring four sisters in a row: Thomas’s grandmother and three great-aunts. The sisters, Thomas tells me, had an unusually strong bond. “They made a pact to be buried together, not with their husbands or children.” The grave is a short distance from the film set and Leanne Rowe, who plays May Moss, says the cast plan to visit. Thomas had long wanted to write about these women and the stories they had passed down. Her first two scripts almost got the nod from ITV nine years ago, but there were changes of personnel and they were dropped. The birth of her son by her actor husband Steve McGann, a near-fatal illness and success with other work followed, before the project’s first producer, Patrick Spence, became head of drama at BBC Northern Ireland and dug out the scripts. 'The series is really a mosaic of oral history,' says Thomas, and proceeds to itemise the origin of the colourful details with which the script is stuffed. Dadda’s hostility to his daughters’ priest, for instance: 'My grandmother was Catholic and my grandfather was Protestant. When the priest called round every Friday, he would make him stand on newspaper just to show he didn’t approve of him being in the house. One of his daughters married a Catholic and he was just referred to as ‘the Fenian’. It was only when a cousin took up genealogy that we found out what the poor man’s name was.' The issue is hardly dead in Liverpool. When Skinns heard an Orange Order band pass by her hotel during filming, she held her phone out of the hotel window so Thomas could hear them. Or Scotland: Thomas tells me that Brian McArdie’s mum, a 'dyed-in-the-wool' Catholic, had told him she couldn’t face watching him playing an Orangeman.

It was a joy to have some input, in the memory of my Grandmother Lily and her sisters. If you have really enjoyed it please e mail the Beeb giving your views and it may go to a second series (this one has 8 episodes)

Thoroughly enjoying the series.... will definately email the beeb Gaynor :-)

just watched it. Lovely little series. The Dadda was definately the head of the family in those days. Mainly cos he was the bread winner probably but nowadays with so many stay at home dads they just dont get the same respect.

Have just left my message on the BBC comments board. Look forward to next weeks episode. Tina x

i I love lilies it is so good love every thing about it the costumes everything my ancestors then and now are in Liverpool so has extra meaning for me June ..

I didnt realise they did those marches in Liverpool. I thought they were in Ireland

Liverpool has surposed to have the biggest Orange Order outside of Ireland ...dont know If that is true.. Weldone Ginny with your research your family must be very proud.....

Hayley an awful lot of Irish settled in Liverpool didn,t they June ..

They did June...as from both sides of my family dads side settled in Liverpool and mum's did in Salford coz of the docks I surpose...

Hayley all mine on my mothers side aer Irish and some dockers too June x